UK examining how to reduce travel quarantine period using tests
The UK is urgently looking into ways to reduce the 14-day travel quarantine period which applies to some passengers arriving in the country, transport secretary Grant Shapps said.
Shapps said that a mixture of Covid-19 testing and self-isolation was promising, and announced the formation of a Global Travel Taskforce to open up international travel, which will report back by early November.
Passengers arriving from countries including France, Spain and the US currently have to self-isolate for 14 days on arrival in Britain, a restriction which airlines say is crushing travel demand.
“The current measures at the border have saved lives,” said Shapps. “Our understanding of the science now means we can intensify efforts to develop options for a testing regime and help reinvigorate our world-leading travel sector.”
“My ministerial colleagues and I have agreed that a regime, based on a single test, provided by the private sector and at the cost of the passenger after a period of self-isolation, could achieve our objective,” Shapps said.
Representatives from the UK’s travel industry largely welcomed the formation of the taskforce, but stressed the need for action to be taken quickly to avoid further damage to the sector, which has been crippled by the pandemic.
The UK’s largest airport group announced proposals to cut over 800 jobs at Stansted, Manchester and East Midlands airports.
In a joint statement, Virgin Atlantic, easyJet, London’s Heathrow airport and Manchester Airports Group said the announcement was “a step in the right direction”.
“We support the decision to opt for a single test, private sector-led, passenger-funded approach, that does not impact on the NHS in any way,” they said, adding: “But travellers need a firm commitment that a comprehensive testing regime will be implemented in early November.”
Airline body International Air Transport Association said that 80 per cent of travellers said they would not fly at all if any quarantine were in place.
“The proposals on the table do not go as far as we had hoped,” an IATA spokesperson said. “A reduction in the length of quarantine is the very minimum needed to restart travel demand.”
In July, Britain changed its policy from a blanket quarantine to one which established “travel corridors” to countries with low infection rates, but with coronavirus cases on the rise globally the number of exempt countries is dwindling.
With Italy on track to become the latest country to be added to the quarantine list, the travel industry has warned it faces an existential crisis unless the policy is changed again.
“This far into the crisis airlines expected more detail than an announcement of a new taskforce,” said Dale Keller, chief executive of the UK’s Board of Airline Representatives.
“The industry has been continuously engaged with the Government,” he continued. “A huge amount of international experience and proposals have been input so far, including the benefits of pre-departure testing, and we believe that a scheme could be implemented very quickly in a matter of weeks.
Karen Dee, chief executive of the UK’s Airports Operators Association, called for a new testing regime for travellers to be implemented “as quickly as practicalities allow so the UK is not left behind”.